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mke · 09-18-2007, 01:01 PM

A CBC news release in 2005 said that the cost of herceptin would be about $40,000 CD for a course of treatment. When I started in 2006 I read something like $35-38,000 CD for treatment. I had 18 infusions so that would be about $2000 per infusion. However that would be only the cost of the drug, not the administration.

I think it was on breastcancer.org that there was a discussion of the price of neulasta shots, and there was a great deal of variance - a factor of about 3 if I remember correctly. It seems that drug companies charge what the market will bear.

I agree with PinkGirl that it would be good for Canadians to know the cost of the health services that they access. However I disagree that they abuse the system. I coordinated a study of around 3000 patients of 100+ family doctors over a 2 year period. We found some heavy users, mostly elderly heart, lung, and diabetes patients. There was only one clear abuser, a woman who was driving her doctor nuts. There was nothing wrong with her, but she was in to see the doctor about every 10 days. We picked patients randomly and he was horrified that this patient would be audited.

09-18-2007, 01:01 PM	#36
mke Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Toronto Posts: 64	A CBC news release in 2005 said that the cost of herceptin would be about $40,000 CD for a course of treatment. When I started in 2006 I read something like $35-38,000 CD for treatment. I had 18 infusions so that would be about $2000 per infusion. However that would be only the cost of the drug, not the administration. I think it was on breastcancer.org that there was a discussion of the price of neulasta shots, and there was a great deal of variance - a factor of about 3 if I remember correctly. It seems that drug companies charge what the market will bear. I agree with PinkGirl that it would be good for Canadians to know the cost of the health services that they access. However I disagree that they abuse the system. I coordinated a study of around 3000 patients of 100+ family doctors over a 2 year period. We found some heavy users, mostly elderly heart, lung, and diabetes patients. There was only one clear abuser, a woman who was driving her doctor nuts. There was nothing wrong with her, but she was in to see the doctor about every 10 days. We picked patients randomly and he was horrified that this patient would be audited.